The La Follette School recently completed contract negotiations with the architectural firm KieranTimberlake to design the future home of the La Follette School at Music Hall, which sits at the bottom of Bascom Hill in the heart of campus. La Follette faculty, staff, and students are currently spread across 28 campus buildings, and as the school continues to grow, a renovated and expanded Music Hall will accommodate this growth and allow more interaction and collaboration among the La Follette community.
The building will be home to La Follette’s hallmark graduate program, its rapidly growing certificates in health policy and public policy, and the much-anticipated proposed new undergraduate Major in Public Policy. Music Hall will include collaborative spaces and a student services space which will be a hub of connections for the growing number of students.
The new space would also help the La Follette School convene key discussions about public policy issues and solutions. “Having adequate space to host high-profile speakers would allow us to reach more policymakers and community members through large outreach events, making La Follette a go-to resource for policy discussions,” says La Follette School Director Susan Webb Yackee.
The vision for the proposed renovation would refresh and expand the space while honoring the past. Built in 1878, Music Hall was originally named Assembly Hall and was intended to be a central meeting place for all types of university activities for its 481 students. In order to preserve the historical character of the building, KieranTimberlake will partner with local firm Insite Consulting Architects, which has extensive experience working on historical buildings at UW–Madison.
La Follette chose KieranTimberlake, a Philadelphia-based firm with expertise in renovating historic buildings, following a nationwide search. The firm recently completed projects at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C., Wellesley College – Pendleton West, and University of Pennsylvania – Stuart Weitzman Hall. La Follette hosted representatives of the firm on campus in late March for a kick-off discussion, and the team was back on campus in early May to conduct a focus group with graduate students and the Board of Visitors. The school has begun to gather feedback from students, faculty, and staff, and will continue to schedule input sessions through the summer and fall.
“This is an exciting development for our future vision for the La Follette School, and I think we have found an excellent partnership in KieranTimberlake,” says Yackee.